writer/former professional wrestling enthusiast

Small Talk

Hey, buddies. It’s been a couple of months. What have I been up to? I’ve done three rounds of revisions on my Pitch Wars book and written almost 20,000 words of a new book. I’ve gone to Arizona a couple of times and spent a weekend in LA with my mom, sisters, and niece. I’ve been volunteering in my kids’ classes, teaching my 5yo to read, helping my 7yo work on stacked algorithms, and yesterday I ate my weight in peanut butter cups. You know, the usual. What about you?

I have this friend who eschews small talk for the big stuff. Immediately. If you meet him, he’ll dive into politics first, religion second. Does this make you cringe? I promise you will never be bored talking to him. I also promise he’ll try to lure you into a debate. Like I said: never boring.

I have this other friend. She and I chat every day while our kids play at the park after school. We always start out with “How was your day?” before grabbing a fork and steak knife so we can cut right into the meat of things (my apologies to the vegetarians reading this analogy. Please pretend I said “eggplant”). I tell her what’s going on in my developing writing career, she tells me about what she’s learning in a university course she’s doing, and then we cover every other topic that touched our lives that day. (Side note: she’s listened to some great TED Talks for her course and will send me links to topics she thinks will interest me. Here’s one on Empathy and one on Blame I really enjoyed).

Y’all know I deal with (mostly manageable) OCD/anxiety. These are both hugely affected by social situations. But I still seek relationships that dig into the hefty stuff of life. They’re like a brain and heart massage when I’m weary.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m good with small talk. I’m even on a first-name basis with the cashiers at my local grocery store (side note: my favourite cashier recently told me about going to LA and blowing a kiss to Jason Statham. I don’t know whether this qualifies as small or medium talk, but it was a great story). My point is, I’m always up for shooting the breeze with the other parents at pick-up and drop-off. I’ll happily exchange pleasantries with neighbours and strangers alike.

But there is something to be said for those people in my life who will ask me how I’m doing and then dive right into the deep end with me.